NASA announced Friday that it has selected 13 possible regions at the South Pole of the Moon as potential future landing sites for its Artemis III mission, a project aiming to send astronauts back to the Moon in 2025.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media.

"Selecting these regions means we are one giant leap closer to returning humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo," said Mark Kirasich, deputy associate administrator for the Artemis Campaign Development Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA said each of these regions is located within six degrees of latitude of the lunar South Pole, an area water ice is believed to exist in permanently shadowed craters and could provide continuous access to sunlight throughout a 6.5-day period, the planned duration of the Artemis III surface mission.

The Apollo missions more than 50 years ago went to the equatorial regions of the Moon, where there are long stretches of daylight, for as long as two weeks. The South Pole may only have only a few days of light, making the missions more challenging and limiting the windows when NASA can launch.